


Wake Me Up When September Ends

by orphan_account



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, Alternate Universe- No Supernatural, Angst with a Happy Ending, Benny Lafitte & Dean Winchester Friendship, Comatose Dean, F/M, How Do I Tag, I Tried, Jess Lives, Lawyer Sam, Songfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-13
Updated: 2016-05-13
Packaged: 2018-06-08 04:06:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,182
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6838417
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The nightmare began with a phone ringing. Which, when you think about it, is quite sinister. It was unlike any nightmare Sammy had had previously, given that it was set in real life. There was no reason for it, the policeman had said once Sammy picked up the phone (His dad was at work, like always, and Dean was supposed to be out with his friends for the night), the accident was just that. An accident. Neither Dean nor the other driver were drunk (which was unusual for Dean), neither were speeding (which was also unusual for Dean), and it wasn’t very dark (which was probably the most unusual fact on the list for Dean, since he was driving home, not away from it like normal). There was apparently no logical reason they could find for the crash to have occurred, but it had. And so the nightmare began.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Wake Me Up When September Ends

_Summer has come and passed_

_The innocent can never last_

_Wake me up when September ends_

The nightmare began with a phone ringing. Which, when you think about it, is quite sinister. It was unlike any nightmare Sammy had had previously, given that it was set in real life. There was no reason for it, the policeman had said once Sammy picked up the phone (His dad was at work, like always, and Dean was supposed to be out with his friends for the night), the accident was just that. An accident. Neither Dean nor the other driver were drunk (which was unusual for Dean), neither were speeding (which was also unusual for Dean), and it wasn’t very dark (which was probably the most unusual fact on the list for Dean, since he was driving home, not away from it like normal). There was apparently no logical reason they could find for the crash to have occurred, but it had. And so the nightmare began.

Sammy missed his first day of school that year. Dean was in a coma, and he couldn’t leave him alone in the hospital. He knew their dad would be mad once he found out that Dean had left Sammy alone at home, would say that he deserved to get in the car crash for his insolence, but Sammy hoped with all his heart that he would forget the lines, just this once. That he would shed a tear for his injured son, rather than normal harsh words and cuff on the head. But he knew that it was stupid to wish for something he knew wouldn’t come true.

The doctors told him that Dean should be waking up soon. He had already missed nearly a week of school, but he didn’t care. He wasn’t a kid anymore. He has to look after Dean, who had always looked after him, but yet now looked so vulnerable in his hospital gown. That’s his job now. Maybe the nightmare will end before the climax even begins. Maybe Dean will wake up before the end of September.

Dean didn’t wake up before September ended. His dad managed to drink himself to death. And now Sammy was alone. He waited. And waited. And got given away to a foster family. And another foster family. Again and again and again. The nightmare seemed like it would never end. He visited Dean every week, but his brother never woke up. And Sammy became Sam. Sam was clever. He was good at school, head of the debate club, on track to study Law. But he never had any real friends. Not anymore. No one could forget about his “dying” brother. They’d whisper it in the corridors, two tables away from him in lessons, always whispers. Inside his head, he’d scream at them, tell them his brother wasn’t “dying” or whatever it was they wanted to call it that day. He’d yell and shout and punch and shove and cry. But on the outside he’d pretend not to notice. It hurt when Benny, Dean’s best-friend, would come up to him at school and tell him he was sorry. That he felt guilty about it. Sam had never liked Benny, but in those moments he felt a mismatched, jumbled up connection with him. And then Benny graduated. But Dean didn’t. So the moments stopped.

On his 178th visit to the hospital since the accident, the hospital asked if he wanted to pull the plug on Dean. According to the doctor, the life support was the only thing keeping him alive. Sam said no. And then he sat in the room, listening to the repetitive beeps and whirs of the machines congregated around Dean’s bed, singing a sad tune under his breath, for an hour. He thought about how happy they'd been just that spring. Dean had bought fireworks and they'd gone to a field and set them off. Sam cried at the memory. And then he left.

When Sam got into Stanford with a fully paid scholarship, he rejoiced. Finally, he was free of the town where his father had died, and where his brother still rested. Seven Septembers had passed since the one that started the nightmare, and yet Dean still hadn’t woken up. He could still remember the phone call from the policeman, but he couldn’t remember Dean’s voice. As he tried and tried to remember it, he could feel the tears running down his face. So he left the town in his rear-view mirror with a pained look in his eyes. Dean hadn’t woken up before any of the Septembers had ended.

Jessica was like a blessing for Sam. She eased his sorrows, even just for a moment. He shoved a smile on his face during the day, and during the night he drowned his life in drink. But he could never forget Dean, his brother, his hero, his protector. He hadn’t cried in months, but he wished he had. The tears just wouldn’t come anymore. Not even at the regular letters he received about pulling the plug. He couldn’t let this nightmare end, no matter how much pain it had caused, because if it ended he wouldn’t remember it when he woke up. He couldn’t lose Dean.

He came back to the town an employed lawyer. He had the cash, had Jessica as his wife, and he had the horrific past. Jess had told him (in her medical opinion) that it was probably time to let Dean go. She said it was cruel to him to force life on a person who couldn’t function and that Dean wouldn’t want him to give up his own life because of grief. And for once he thought about the possibility that she might be right. But then he got another call.

The call was about Dean. Apparently he had been improving gradually over the last twenty years, so much so that there was a chance he would be waking up soon. If he did, he would be completely fine, but if he didn’t wake up before this October, he never would. Sam felt like he was going to scream. That was what they had said the first year, and they were wrong then, he didn’t wake up “soon”. Why did they build him up for a fall?

Jess met a (still) comatose Dean on the 27th of September. The nightmare looked as if it was coming to an end. He couldn’t cope with seeing Dean so frail. So fragile. So dead-looking. It hurt too much.

It was on the 29th of September that he decided to give up hope. He chose to end the nightmare before it ever resolved itself. But he was glad he held off until the 1st October, because at 23:47 on 30th of September he heard Dean’s voice for the first time in over twenty years. They had both finally woken up from the nightmare of reality. And then Sam became Sammy again.

_Like my fathers come to pass_

_Twenty years has gone so fast_

_Wake me up when September ends_

**Author's Note:**

> Unbeta'ed. This is based on the song 'Wake Me Up When September Ends' by Green Day. Also, I know that some of the events don't happen when they do in the show (or I was really vague about it), but I put them in to fit (slightly) with the song. This fic is kinda crap, but oh well. Thanks for reading!


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